May 2013

Tuesday May 7th, 2013

Greetings and welcome!

The weather this week and weekend looks mostly good with a few minor exceptions. Today and tomorrow look pretty nice with highs in the mid-70s. Thursday and Thursday night there is a decent chance of rain. Behind that storm we are expecting to cool off a little with highs in the low 60s for Friday and Saturday. Saturday there is a very minor chance of a shower. That storm will mostly miss us, bringing only about a 10-20% chance of a shower. It will be followed by colder air, and maybe upper 50s or low 60s for Sunday.

This weekend the Marinette and Oconto County ATV trails will open back up after the spring thaw. They were closed since April 8th to let the frost come out of the ground and let the soil firm up. Friday they open again.

This weekend is also Mother’s Day weekend. Kosir’s is offering a Mothers’s Day weekend special where Moms raft for free all weekend..

MOTHERS’ DAY MADNESS!

Take Your Mom out(side) for Mothers Day!

Moms Raft Free !**

May 10th – 12th, 2013

** When accompanied by a full paid rafter.

*Price includes wet suit & booties!

There are Mother’s Day buffets at Hilltop Resort and Twin Bridge Resort as well as Peshtigo River Resort. Peshtigo River Resort closed for the winter and will reopen Friday at noon.

If you are traveling in the area keep an eye out for deer, especially at night. The grass is greening up along the roads, and they are out along the roads feasting on it. I have seen a lot of deer this week and had to slam on the brakes more than a few times.

As I mentioned, the grass is greening up. There are new buds on trees starting to open with leaves, and the pussy willows are starting to bloom. I saw some emerging ferns and the first wildflowers over the weekend too. It is just getting started, but the greening of the land is under way.

So far the insect world is a little behind. I have only seen one mosquito (killed it..) and only two wood ticks all of last weekend. Considering the areas that I traveled, that is pretty good for the first week of May.

The whitewater rafting last weekend was fantastic. They had the big boats out for the 31+ inches of water flowing down the Peshtigo, and they were really burying them in the waves and rapids.

This was one of my favorite pictures from over the weekend. Believe it or not, this is a 15 or 16′ raft with 13 people in it. SMASH!

The river is now dropping from it’s spring peak, and is a little mellower, but still a fun ride. It peaked at 31 or 32 last weekend, and is down about 10″ so far.

I’d guess that water levels will drop to about +14 or 16″ for this weekend. That is a great level because the adventurous can take a funyak (1 person inflatable kayak), and people that prefer a raft can do that too. It will also be falling, making it a little less aggressive, but still splashy and fun.

Paddle this weekend if you can, it is the last chance to catch the spring runoff water. I still expect good water levels right through Memorial Day weekend, but they will probably be a little lower than this weekend.

Well I am off to go and dive into a beautiful 70 degree day. There have been a few so far this spring, but not on one of my days off. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday May 3rd, 2013

Greetings and welcome!

I stopped by the dam at Caldron Falls Flowage on the way to work Thursday afternoon and saw that Caldron Falls was ice free. From what I could see on the way by, High Falls was too. We have had a windy few days, so some wave action in addition to the warm week definitely helped move some ice off of area lakes.

The rivers are roaring from the warm weather and snow melt. The Peshtigo and Menominee Rivers are setting records for this date. That isn’t too surprising, the thaw is a week or two behind this year.

On the Peshtigo it will bring exceptional whitewater rafting for the weekend and beyond. The roaring Rapids section is roaring indeed, running at about +31 and 1,870cfs of water.I consider anything above 300cfs the fun zone, and above 800 merits a YEE-HA! 1,800+cfs is huge.

The river between High Falls and the Caldron Falls dam was looking a little swollen when I went by this afternoon, and it wasn’t a surprise. The dams will be releasing some water for sure. One cubic foot of water per second (cfs) adds up to about 1.98 acre feet of water per day. At 1,870cfs x 2 acre feet per cfs, the Peshtigo is putting 3,740 acre feet per day into Caldron Falls Flowage. At current flow rates it could raise Caldron 3.67 feet in a day. That is a little water.

The Menominee is a much larger river, and there is a lot more at risk when it floods.  Right now Niagara is under a flood warning, along with the rest of the areas that the river passes through on the way to Lake Michigan at Menominee/Marinette. The Niagara dam is wide open and the river is running at 12,000cfs. Slug is reporting that the river is over its banks by Bear Point and that people should be careful of floating debris lifted by the water going into the woods.

At Koss, MI pretty close to where it goes into Lake Michigan the Menominee is running at 15,200cfs. That is pretty huge. At that rate it could raise Lake Michigan about an inch every four days.

Anyway, if you are fishing the rivers this weekend be aware of swift currents and watch for floating debris. If you are not fishing, you should go whitewater rafting.

Now we are doing pretty good this spring compared to our neighbors to the northwest. If you go to northwestern WI they just got 12-16″ of snow, and 20 is possible some places. They are talking about 2′ of snow in the woods yet, and there won’t be much fishing on the lakes because they are still frozen over. They are expecting excellent conditions for cross country skiing this weekend though. Here is an article from the Milwaukee fish wrap.

Right now the boundary between the warm and cold air is over northwest WI, as it has been for a few days now. There was some high pressure to our east that was blocking its eastward movement. At that point the waves of precipitation were going along the boundary one after another like train cars on a rail.

Thursday afternoon that blocking high started breaking down, and we saw some pretty good waves of rain come through. Some FB friends spoke of a few rumbles of thunder, but I missed that. As of 12:30 am it is still raining, and now the porch has an icy glaze. The cement under it isn’t icy yet, but give it a little time to cool and it could get that way by morning.

Right now it looks like the whole stationary boundary thing is breaking down in a big way. If it all goes well it will rain a little Friday and then clear out and leave us a dry weekend. The forecast at the moment is for cloudy & 60 Saturday and partly sunny and 60 Sunday. If there was a Buy It Now button on the forecast I’d push it. It could be a lot worse.

The rain had the deer out in force tonight. I had a 13 mile ride home and don’t recall more than about a half mile or mile between e-stops for deer along the road, except on the county highway(C) between Red Pine BP and Kosir’s. West of Kosir’s it was back to deer every half mile.

The guess is that the rain and freshly greened up grass is moving them around. We just got our first green grass this week, and a lot of it will be in sunny areas along the road. They have been out in force for that. Rain moves them around anyway, and the lure of fresh green browse is bringing them out by the roads. Keep an eye out for them over the weekend.

Also noteworthy this weekend.. I saw an article a month or so ago that the OWI task force will be out in the Town of Stephenson and Crivitz area this weekend. Make good use of designated drivers this weekend.

I think that pretty much covers my list for the overnight update. If I think of something in the morning I’ll add it. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday May 2nd, 2013

Greetings and welcome!

It looks like the warm weather this week helped to open up some lakes. I have reports that High Falls and Caldron opened up. I haven’t seen the small lakes yet, but the warm week took down a lot of ice.

Also if you get a chance to go rafting this weekend pounce on it. It looks like the peak of the high water is close (or maybe not?) and the Peshtigo is running +30″ right now. That is some really huge whitewater. Don’t miss out, call Kosir’s today.

RJB

Wednesday May 1, 2013

Greetings and welcome!

The weekend weather really brought around a lot of changes. The 70ish and mostly sunny weather knocked the winter down pretty good. There are still patches of snow in sheltered areas and in the woods, but a lot went away since last Thursday.

Someone asked if the ground is still frozen. Yes and no. In sunny spots the frost is mostly out and the ground is getting firmer.My driveway is pretty firm and the very first green grass is growing along the sunny part.

Places with mixed sun and shade are still sloppy with frost-out mud. I had spots that my foot sunk into the mud 3″ over the weekend.  Shady spots can still hold 6-12″ of snow and still have frost in the ground.

That is what I see right here in Silver Cliff. I would expect that if you go north 10 miles or more they are not quite as far along with the spring thaw.

The big warm spell also did wonders for breaking down the ice on area lakes. Prior to late last week some lakes had 20+ inches of ice, and north of Hwy it was closer to 30 on some of them. The opening of fishing this coming weekend looked pretty grim. That changed somewhat.

When I went past Caldron Falls Flowage close to the river and past Boat Landing 11 it was open as far as the eye could see, probably at least down to Crane’s Bay. A friend said that the big end still holds a lot of ice. (Update- A FaceBook post from Fishers Camp shows an open bay.)

When I went past Chute Pond along 32 Monday evening the little bit that I could see from the road was about 40% open, mostly along the shoreline.

Maiden Lake looked like it was pretty well iced over, though the ice looked rotten from the sun.

An over the bar report had High Falls mostly clear of ice except out by the islands. The Boat Landing right by Hwy X looked open when I went past Monday afternoon, but the parking lot looked soft.

So.. it looks like there are lakes to fish without the ice auger, but some will need to melt more before you could fish them. It is going to vary by the lake and depend on the weather this week.

That kind of goes hand in hand with the opening of the ATV trails. They have to wait until the ground firms up from the spring frost out mud before opening the trails back up. As I mentioned, I was sinking 3″ into the mud last weekend in some spots. I also walked across places that had 2″ of ice and 6-12″ of snow. ATV trails sometimes open the first weekend in May, but they won’t this year.

Oconto County is posting a May 10th opening date, Marinette and Forest Co are closed until further notice.

The warm weather melted a lot of the snow and put a lot of water into the rivers in a hurry. The Peshtigo River is really cranking, running about +30″ right now, and at 1,800cfs. That is huge. I consider anything above 300cfs the fun zone, and 800cfs really fun. Running 1,800 is monstrous.

If you want to see really big water whitewater, call Kosir’s today. This week rafting will be outrageous, and it won’t fall much by the weekend.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that rafting will probably be above average right through Memorial Day. There is still a lot of winter to melt off, and the watershed is very well charged with water.

The warm weather has brought the first frogs to the little pond out back. Both the croakers and spring peepers are quite vocal right now, and it is really loud. It is pretty late in the month for first frogs, but they finally are here. The pond’s water is at near record high levels too.

This week brings an interesting weather forecast. The scenario has a stormy boundary between colder and warm air setting up right over the state and camping there through the weekend. That is expected to bring unsettled weather and a chance of rain daily up until about Sunday.

There are a lot of question marks involved here. Right now it looks like the boundary is set up about 150 miles to our west. If it stays there, we will stay on the warmer side and miss most of the precip. Right now it looks like central MN and far NW WI could see some significant snow out of it.

The GFS forecast model is showing it eventually inching this way and having more of a effect on us late week before sputtering out over the weekend.

I have seen similar scenarios before and it is a fairly low confidence forecast. It could end up as shown, but I wouldn’t bet my last Oreo on it.  I would go ahead and plan for a good weekend with an outside chance of rain, at least until it gets closer and proves me wrong.

Beyond the weekend the GFS is showing much warmer and rather active weather for the next few weeks.

That is the news for today. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB